Congratulations to Natalie Kelsey: her Charted Waters design won the most votes (by an impressive margin) in our first-ever Steampunk-themed Fabric Of the Week competition. Check out more of Natalie's work on DeviantArt.

Thanks to all the participating designers! The top ten vote-getters were:

February 19, 2010

In the newsletter yesterday we posted two new Fabric Of the Week themes, one of which has a deadline of Monday. [note that we have a new process for entering contests, explained in the How to Enter section of the upcoming contests page]

Snow. Contest for fabric designs with a theme of snow. Submissions are open now, but will close on Monday, February 22, at noon EST. Voting will take place next week.

Science. Fabric designs using science (and/or math) as a theme. Submissions are open now, but close on Monday, March 1, at noon EST.

February 18, 2010

The design theme for this week's fabric contest is Steampunk, an aesthetic in which Victorian technology gets mingled with science fiction and fantasy. You have 38 designs to admire this week, but for the first time you'll be able to vote without leaving Spoonflower. It's the inaugural week of our very own contest tool. Voting should work pretty much the way our most recent contests have worked, but please let us know if you spot any problems. As usual, you can vote for as many designs as you like! We'll announce the winner next week.

Andrea Roman of Minnesota wins our LOVE-themed Fabric Of the Week contest her first time out with Finding Love fabric. Congratulations, Andrea! You can see more of Andrea's work in her Ttoz shop on Etsy.

From today (Thursday, February 18) through next Thursday (February 25), you can submit one fabric design in your Spoonflower account to a special Fabric Of the Week contest being sponsored by NAP, Inc,. the makers of the Boba 2G, a baby carrier made using organic cotton. The winning fabric design, as selected by the Spoonflower community in voting March 1-7, will be used in the back panel of the baby carrier. The winner will get to work with the folks at NAP, Inc. to name the new carrier.

DETAILS

Theme: nature. Choose a design that appeals to children and parents alike.

Each designer can enter a single fabric design from her Spoonflower account. [If you don't have a Spoonflower account, they're free. Get started here.]

Entries are open from Thursday, February 18 through Thursday, February 25, midnight EST.

Voting will take place March 1-7 via the Spoonflower blog and newsletter.

The winner will be announced on March 9, 2010 and will receive a $500 check from NAP, Inc.

Go to your design library. If you don't yet have any designs, upload the design you wish to enter.

Pull down the Action menu underneath the design you wish to enter in the contest, and select Boba contest under Enter in Contest.

Choose the layout option for your design, then click the button that reads "Enter in Contest". If you wish to change the size/dpi of your design, you can do so using the edit option on this page.

If you decide to enter a different design or make changes, you can withdraw a design by following the same steps, then entering a new design.

You can only have one design active in the contest at a time. Once the entry period closes, we will 'freeze' the submitted designs.

DETAILS & GUIDELINES

Upload designs in JPG, PNG, TIF, or GIF format. Your artwork should be sized at 150 dp. Once uploaded, use the contest entry page to edit the repeat style of your
fabric design.

Please submit an original design that complies with Spoonflower's Terms of Use.

The fabric panel on the Boba carrier is roughly 15 inches by 10 inches, but is not rectangular.

The point is not necessarily to design a panel that fits exactly into the available space, but to design a beautiful fabric that will make the carrier more striking when sewn into the back panel.

Other fabric colors in the pack that your design should coordinate with: black and brown (Pantone 4695 U). The green Boba logo is Pantone 381U.

Submitted designs must be public. To edit which of your designs are
public, visit the Design Gallery page in your Spoonflower account,
click on Design Details and check the box on the lower right that
reads, "I would like to include this design in my public gallery."

In the keywords field please enter the word "Boba."

The size of the panel and the carrier colors are shown in the photo to
the right. Note that the hex values of the colors vary quite a bit
depending on your computer monitor -- if you are seriously trying to match the
colors of the carrier, use the Pantone values.

The area of fabric that will be used in the carrier is the area in the photo that is green.

If your design wins the contest, you'll have a chance to work with NAP, Inc. to tweak and refine the design as needed before the fabric panels are printed and the carrier goes into production.

Please note that unlike Spoonflower's usual weekly contests,
participants in this contest must agree to grant NAP, Inc. full
ownership rights to their design should they win the contest. Neither
Spoonflower nor NAP, Inc. assert any rights over submitted designs not
designated winners. You may delete any design you upload to Spoonflower
at any time.

While we do not require that a design submitted to the contest have
been purchased first, please consider that it's a
good idea to at least see for yourself what your design looks like on
fabric before entering it in a public contest. Swatches are $5.

Congratulations to Julie Shaw of Surrey -- her Green Lacewing fabric crawled to the top of a wriggling mass of terrific designs in our bug-themed Fabric Of the Week contest. Like our other winners, Julie will receive five yards of free Spoonflower fabric.

February 09, 2010

We are pleased as punch today to share the news that illustrator and fab fabric designer Heather Ross (author of Weekend Sewing) has decided to make a collection of her previously out of print designs available through Spoonflower.

Heather has posted some details about which designs will be available on her blog, but as soon as they are live we will post about it here.

If you don't know Heather's work already, take at least a few minutes to peruse some of her textile designs: Kokka of Japan and Mendocino for Westminster. She's amazingly talented and we're thrilled that she's decided to work with us on this very special project.

February 04, 2010

This week's fabric design theme is BUGS! We have a whopping 106 creepy-crawly fabrics to admire this week. The ballot has three pages and -- as usual -- you can 'check' as many designs as you like. VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BUG FABRICS

February 02, 2010

Upcoming Fabric Of the Week Contests:

LOVE: Create a fabric design with the theme of
love. Keep in mind that the fabric preview for voting will be a fat
quarter (21" x 18"). Deadline is Monday, February 8, 2010, at noon EST.
ENTER THE LOVE CONTEST.

STEAMPUNK: A contest for fabric designs with a
steampunk theme. Steampunk as an aesthetic mingles elements of the
Victorian with fantasy and science-fiction. You can read more about it
in Wikipedia,
of course. Keep in mind that the fabric preview for voting will be a
fat quarter (21" x 18"). Deadline is Monday, February 15, 2010, at noon
EST. ENTER THE STEAMPUNK CONTEST.

Spoonflower/Boba Baby Carrier Contest: We're working with a company called Nap, Inc., to offer you a chance to design the fabric panel for their new organic baby carrier.
The winning design will be featured on the carrier itself and the
winner will receive $500. The design theme is NATURE. Submissions will
be open February 18-25, and voting will be March 1-7. FIND CONTEST DETAILS HERE

To keep things interesting for the voters please refrain from entering the same design in multiple contests, even if the theme of a previous entry is reusable.

Be sure to review the rules for our regular Fabric Of the Week Contests (Note that the Boba contest above has its own rules listed on the contest details page)